How Does It Work:
The accordion produces sound when the bellows expand and contract making the air flow over the different size reeds inside the instrument. By pressing one of the white melody keys and then alternatively pulling and then pushing together the accordion you will find that each key will produce two notes. There are seven keys.
How to play:
After getting acquainted with holding the accordion, you can now proceed with some playing exercises. Starting with the first key, let’s try a scale. When pushing the bellows together the keys 1, 3, 5 produce Do, Mi, So notes and the keys 2, 4, 6, 7 produce Re, Fa, La, Ti when pulling apart.
To get comfortable with your new instrument, let’s start a little scale exercise. Start by expanding the accordion bellows. Gently and evenly begin pushing it back together while holding the first key down, keep holding the note key down while you switch directions by pulling the accordion apart. Jump to the next key and push in and pull apart. Jump once more and you have now played Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La.
You will notice that at the fourth note key (Ti, Do) the action is reversed to stay in the scale. By reversing the pattern the lower sound will be produced by pulling the higher sound then pushing. Just remember keys 4-7 operate in reverse of keys 1-3.
Practice this pushing and pulling action as you move up and down the scales by pressing each key in sequence, first slowly and then in increased speed until the whole scale has been mastered. (Remember to switch direction at the fourth key.) It will take a little practice not to run out of air while you move through the scales, but you can always use the air valve to take a “breath” if you need more air. The air valve is pressed using your left hand.
here are 3 buttons that you can play with your left hand. The first button is the harmonic button, the middle button is the bass button and the third button is the air valve.
While playing a tune you can add dimension by pressing one of the two left handed bass buttons.